Haiti Exception

Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken is Assistant Professor at the City College of New York and author of Spirit Possession in French, Haitian, and Vodou Thought: An Intellectual History (Lexington Books 2015). Kaiama L. Glover is Associate Professor of French and Africana Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University and author of Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon (Liverpool University Press 2010). Mark Schuller is Associate Professor of Anthropology and NGO Leadership at Northern Illinois University and an affiliate at the Faculté d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti. He is the author of 'Humanitarian Aftershocks in Haiti' and 'Killing with Kindness' (Rutgers University Press), and co-director/co-producer of Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy. Jhon Picard Byron is Professor at the State University of Haiti (UEH), Chair of LADIREP Research Unit and Director of the Department of Anthropology/ Sociology at the Faculté d’Ethnologie.

• Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken, Jhon Picard Byron, Kaiama L. Glover and Mark Schuller, ‘Editors’ Introduction’  I. Tracing Intellectual HistoriesJhon Picard Byron, ‘Transforming Ethnology: Understanding the Stakes and Challenges of Price-Mars in the Development of Anthropology in Haiti’Mark Schuller, ‘The Intellectual Uses of Haiti’Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken, ‘On “being Jewish”, on “studying Haiti”… Herskovits, Métraux, Race, and Human Rights’Laurent Dubois, ‘Haiti, Gender and Anthrohistory: A Mintzian Journey’  II. Interrogating the Enquiring Self Kaiama L. Glover, ‘“Written with Love”: Intimacy and Relation in Katherine Dunham’s Island Possessed’Barbara Browning, ‘Dance, Haiti and Lariam Dreams’ Carlo A. Célius, ‘“Haitian Art” and Primitivism: Effects, Uses and Beyond’    III. On Nation-Building: Histories, Theories, PraxesDeborah Thomas, ‘Haiti, Politics and Sovereign (Mis)recognitions’Valerie Kaussen, ‘Haitian Culture in the Informational Economics of Humanitarian Aid’Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, ‘Thinking About the City – At Last!’  Claudine Michel, ‘Epilogue: Kalfou Danje: Situating Haitian Studies, and My Own Journey Within It’

Reviews'The Haiti Exception will be of interest to scholars of Haiti, most obviously to anthropologists, but also scholars of literature, performance, art, urban planning, and anyone interested in the interplay between academic research and international aid. Its multidisciplinary approach means, naturally, that not all chapters will be of equal interest to all readers, but the volume as a whole should be relevant to anyone who thinks about how narratives and stereotypes are created, maintained, reinforced, and subverted.'Laura Wagner, H-France Review